James Karanja

Tech guy|Virtualization Evangelist| B.ball Fan

[James Karanja @jmkaranja]

@Afro__Investor Do you prefer individual stocks to ETFs?

[James Karanja @jmkaranja]

@sakacc @_SMillard @IonQ_Inc Congrats Chad. All the best. Still remember when you showed up to our Pre Sales GSAP in Franklin (way back) and spoke about the PreSales manifesto and the VMworlds in Barcelona.

[Naval @naval]

A government is the “biggest gang,” with a local monopoly on violence.

It’s good at preventing and stopping things.

It’s bad at building and running things.

Its main job is law and order, and a government which fails at that, is a failed government.

[Dexerto @Dexerto]

Frida has released a limited-edition breast milk ice cream

[Jostein Hauge @haugejostein]

The idea that developing countries can skip industrialization — and instead develop based on services — is fundamentally misguided.

Except for very small countries, *every* country that has transformed its economy from low- to high-income has done so through industrialization.

[James Karanja @jmkaranja]

West World in real life.

[Sudarshan Kamath @kamath_sutra]

What in the world are people building 👁️

[James Karanja @jmkaranja]

Something for Nairobi to watch out for as we slowly decline to this.

[ɖʀʊӄքǟ ӄʊռʟɛʏ 🇧🇹🇹🇩 @kunley_drukpa]

HOW SOCIAL TRUST IS ERODED - A VISIT TO INDIA 🇮🇳

🧵 A few years ago now I spent some time in India. One of the more lasting impressions I have from that period was the degree to which the low trust environment there (of a kind) wore me down mentally and transformed my attitude towards public spaces from a by disposition fairly ‘high trust’ person to being much more cynical and constantly on guard - ie being ‘low trust’. Over the space of the first month or so, because of the environment, experiencing real psychogenic anguish at the mental transition from being basically well meaning and otherwise liberal to irritable, combative and developing (experience-informed) prejudices.

My assumptions about how easily you can sustain ‘high levels of social trust’ were shredded. Many people take for granted that high levels of social trust can be upheld without excessive coercion on a sort of naive libertarian basis of most people naturally being ‘fairly decent’ and so behaving ‘fairly decently’. Though I’d encountered this ‘low trust’ behaviour in a many other countries it was in india, because of how common and obtrusive it was, that it became impossible to avoid internalising that a lot of people are not in fact ‘fairly decent’ and that if enough not ‘fairly decent’ people get together they can easily despoil social environments.

Let me give you some examples of the kinds of behaviours you would encounter in India and then explain how prolonged exposure to those behaviours changes you. Granted you are a ‘Mleccha’, a ‘Gora’, (Foreigner, White Man) so qualifier you are treated differently but you still encounter these attitudes appreciably more than you would in many other countries. They do not of course represent the attitude of every Indian (I am an amateur Indologist I love India don’t @ me) but it evidences a certain ‘dog eat dog’ ‘tragedy of the commons’ mindset on the part of a part of the population that results in very appreciable low society wide social trust, at least over certain behaviours. (Others may be more policed eg social roles.) (Incidentally I think this mentality is one of the principal causes for many of India’s systemic problems but that is a separate topic.)

• Take a tuk-tuk or taxi. Driver pretends his meter is broken, quotes price ten times more than actual price. Doesn’t have any change, doesn’t have a card machine. Starts arguing with you when you say you are not giving them more money they should have the change. Sometimes will plead for large tip even if you pay them more than the actual price too. To combat this you have to be prepared to argue with the driver every time you take a taxi (start ‘fights’) and bring small change with you everywhere

• Taking the Mumbai Metro with a woman (naively), metro is incredibly crowded. Man uses crowd as an excuse to press himself up against the woman, starts masturbating. Woman screams, starts to have panic attack - but crowd doesn’t really react. She runs out crying at next metro stop

• Walking around on streets - lots of beggars approach you, often old women, young children, people with some kind of disfigurement, hijra etc. Sometimes they aggressively grab your wrist, your clothes, tug at your shirt and refuse to let go. Often will follow you for a while even if you tell them to go away

[1/2]

[K24TV @K24Tv]

"Kenyans are used to joking, mediocrity, lies and small dreams. We have
been socialized to think small. ”-DP Kindiki

[James Karanja @jmkaranja]

Very hard to find the right words to describe what the hell they are doing. And yet we contribute to this. It needs to be scrapped.

[James Karanja @jmkaranja]

in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

[James Karanja @jmkaranja]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope,

[James Karanja @jmkaranja]

it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way —

[James Karanja @jmkaranja]

Pied Piper is that you.

[Geiger Capital @Geiger_Capital]

Well… Bitcoin is dead.

Fun while it lasted. All of your passwords too.

[James Karanja @jmkaranja]

Amazing stuff.

[Rithwik Jayasimha @thel3l]

Apple released a hearing aids feature for the AirPods Pro a while ago. I bought a pair for grandma, but then realized that the feature was geoblocked in India

So we at @_lagrangepoint decided to unblock it. It ended up involving a leaky microwave and building a Faraday cage:

[James Karanja @jmkaranja]

@Wacera_K Where do you go to swim and is it a heated pool. Looking for one where it can be used all round.

[James Karanja @jmkaranja]

@gwamaee @OkiyaOmtatah @scherargei Kazi safi George. From your official workstation to this.

[James Karanja @jmkaranja]

@jpmuga 🤔😭😭😭

[Citizen TV Kenya @citizentvkenya]

“We are leveraging on AI in the university funding model, fertilizer distribution and SHIF,” Ruto woos US tech giants to invest in Kenya

[Frantz Fanon @waweru]

The transition of the ACK and its clergy from being a stalwart in the struggle for multi party democracy to an enabler of regime despotism and sycophancy is a topic worthy of several PhD theses .. what explains this ? 🤔🤔😭😭😭😳😳😳

[Moe @moneyacademyKE]

Here is a summary of Savannah Clinker Limited, the company planning to acquire Bamburi Cement for Sh25 billion:

Established in 2019, Savannah Clinker Limited has limited operational history.

The company has had no cashflows for the past 2 years.

Savannah Clinker Limited reported a net loss of Sh750,000 for 2023, an improvement from Sh3.5 million in 2022.

It claims to have secured a $415 million financing agreement with "unnamed U.S. investors" for its limestone extraction and clinker processing facility in Kitui County, Kenya.

The company's total equity as of 2023 was Sh600 million, with property, plant, and equipment valued at Sh330 million, and exploration capital costs of Sh271 million.

Savannah says it has invested over Sh650 million in planning and studies for its cement operations.

[James Karanja @jmkaranja]

😂😂😂.

[Shiku🌼 @shikumungai_]

Sylvia Mulinge was a good student of Bob Collymore. She's using that manual huko kwa jirani and it seems to be working. Meanwhile our short accountant at that green place is just making it worser by the day.